The present invention is generally directed to scratch-off lottery tickets employing an opaque scratch-off layer for covering a game area. Scratch-off lottery games have been in use for many years and have gained increasing popularity among lottery players. Security for scratch-off lottery tickets is a continuing problem and there is a continuing need for ways in which to authenticate and/or validate a lottery ticket at the retail establishment when the user seeks to collect a prize. Scratch-off lottery tickets are generally comprised of a non-game data area which can be printed with a wide range of graphics principally directed to making the ticket attractive and/or to present the theme of the lottery game. The non-game data area, in addition to graphics, may include instructions for playing the game, and, in some cases, some means of identifying the game through electronic means such as through the use of a bar code and the like.
Scratch-off lottery games of the type mentioned above have conventionally employed a region in the non-game data area or game data area which has a preselected region for providing a readable portion of the ticket that can be used for authenticating and/or validating the ticket. This region is typically comprised of a conductive ink which can be read by a validation apparatus (e.g. a scanner) and the presence of a proper signal from the conductive ink indicates that the lottery ticket is an authentic ticket and/or a valid prize winning ticket.
However, the employment of this conductive ink region in the non-game data area of the lottery ticket has two disadvantages. First, the conductive ink region is visible to the user at the point of purchase. There therefore exists the possibility that the conductive ink region can be duplicated or transferred to another ticket in an effort to obtain a counterfeit prize. Another disadvantage of employing the conductive ink region in the non-game data area is that the conductive ink region has a tendency to detract from the graphic display provided in this portion of the lottery ticket. This is a problem for lottery ticket producers because the public has grown to demand a high quality level of graphics on a lottery ticket to spur purchases. In addition, the non-game data area often has the same overall appearance as the game data area. Since the game data area has a removable scratch-off material thereon, the purchasing public often expects the non-game data area to have a removable scratch-off material as well.
It would therefore be a advance in the art of producing scratch-off lottery tickets if a lottery ticket could be developed in which the conductive ink region used for authenticating and/or validating a lottery ticket can be hidden from view so that it cannot be readily duplicated by the lottery purchaser or mislead the purchaser as to its purpose. It would be a further advance in the art of producing scratch-off lottery tickets if the conductive ink region, while being hidden from view, can be readily detected by existing detection equipment employed currently in the lottery industry.